XTRO, XTRO 2, and XTRO: WATCH THE SKIES
A film review by Chuck Dowling
Copyright 1997 Chuck Dowling
Xtro (1982) NO STARS out of ***** - Cast: Maryam D'Abo. Written and Directed by Harry Bromley-Davenport. Running Time: 84 minutes.
Stupid and utterly disgusting British horror flick about a boy's father who is abducted by aliens. Now get this: the father returns to earth three years later as an alien, he kills a woman and enters her body in order to be reborn as a man, and then spends the rest of the film killing people in order to turn into ANOTHER alien. Then there are killer clowns and midgets and toy soldiers involved in the mayhem. The ONLY reason I watched this (well, fast-forwarded through it actually) was because I needed to see some film beginning with 'X', and it was the only one I could find (I'm not watching "Xanadu"). Amazingly, someone thought so highly of this garbage to finance two sequels!!! [R]
-----
Xtro 2:The Second Encounter (1991) 1/2 out of ***** - Cast: Jan-Michael Vincent. Written and Directed by: Harry Bromley-Davenport. Running Time: 92 minutes.
Nine years after Sir Harry Bromley Davenport's smash hit "Xtro", someone approached him and said, "We want another one!" And so Davenport said, "ok!" and typed up the script and made this film. And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the first. I guess he figured that the film needed the recognition of his original masterpiece in order to be a success. Heh.
In this film, a group of scientists are able to enter into another dimension. But by doing so releases a slimy monster. And let the "Alien" and "Aliens" rip-offs begin! For example, the creature presents itself by, how else, bursting through someone's stomach! And there are heavily armed marines to deal with the creatures! Even though "Xtro 2" is a hundred times better than the original, it still sucks, and at least the original was original! [R]
-----
Xtro: Watch the Skies (1995) NO STARS out of ***** - Cast: Andrew Divoff, Jim Hanks, Robert Culp. Written and Directed by: Harry Bromley-Davenport. Running Time: 97 minutes.
Hmm. Well, I just don't get it. I just don't understand who is funding Harry Bromley-Davenport and why is he making all these terrible movies about aliens? This latest installment in the "Xtro" saga (say it along with me) HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FIRST TWO!!! Can't we create some sort of law or something to prevent this??? Not just the use of the title but the actual making of the movies?
Well, THIS TIME, a group of marines is sent to a forgotten island populated with bunny rabbits, a senile old man, oh and of course, aliens. The aliens then start to kill the marines, and I think some of the bunnies too. Jim Hanks (Tom's brother) plays one of the marines and looks, acts, and sounds very much like his brother. For just a few minutes, I was enjoying almost Tom Hanks doing things. Only for a few though. I can't wait for the next installment in the series that has nothing to do with anything that came before it! [R]
-- Chuck Dowling Visit Chuck's Movie Reviews at http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ Over 1,600 movies rated and/or reviewed! Movie news, film related links, and reader's reviews.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews